TEHRAN, November 10 - Iran has taken delivery of the second F-class gas turbine from German engineering group Siemens for use at a 600-megawatt power station being built in Bandar Abbas.

TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Under a contract signed with Iran’s energy and infrastructure conglomerate MAPNA, the German group is to supply at least 20 gas turbines as well as associated generators over a period of five years to install.

The far-reaching agreement signed in March 2016 foresees the transfer of know-how for the F-class gas turbine technology to modernize the Iranian power supply system. It also includes a license for manufacturing F-class gas turbines in Iran.

The first of the two F-class gas turbines to be used at the Bandar Abbas power station was delivered in September 2016.

The contract covers not only the two SGT5-4000F gas turbines but also two SGen5-2000H generators and the associated power plant instrumentation and controls.

Only six months after signing an energy agreement with the MAPNA Group, Siemens shipped the first F-class gas turbine for the Bandar Abbas project in Iran in September 2016.

At the time, CEO of the Siemens Power and Gas Division Willi Meixner said with the delivery of the first gas turbine to Iran, his group was renewing its long-term partnership with MAPNA with the aim of modernizing and expanding the country’s power supply network.

There was no immediate explanation on Saturday as to why the second delivery had taken so long.

Siemens’ activities in Iran go back as far as 1868 and involve important infrastructure projects but the German industrial group suspended its cooperation with Iran in 2010 due to sanctions.

The group was also one of the first major companies to agree on a deal with Iran after the lifting of sanctions in January 2016.

It signed a $1.6 billion memorandum of understanding on Iran’s rail infrastructure and a long-term roadmap with MAPNA on the power sector.

The new power capacity being installed in Bandar Abbas is sufficient to supply electricity to 150 000 Iranian homes. MAPNA plans to expand the facility into a combined-cycle power plant at a later point in time.

The SGT5-4000F gas turbine has a base power output of 307 MW and has a 40% efficiency rating. The SGen5-2000H hydrogen-cooled, two-pole generator comes with ratings from 350 to 600 mega volt ampere (MVA).

Siemens workers are installing a 400 MW SGEN5-2000H generator.

The Iranian Energy Ministry is planning to build further gas-fired power plants in various locations across the country. They are expected to help cover demand for electricity, which grows by approximately five percent each year.

On Tuesday, the contract for the construction of the Aras combined-cycle power plant, one of Iran's F-class power stations, was signed at a value of 250 million euros.

It was inked on the sidelines of the 17th international Electricity Exhibition of Iran 17th The Under the between MAPNA and Mani Asia Group, under which a 451-megawatt power plant will be built in the Aras Free Zone in northwest Iran.

Iran wants to increase its generation capacities from approximately 74,000 megawatts to a total of 100,000 megawatts over the coming five years, with the bulk of the new power plants to be fired with natural gas.